I Run to be Fit, You Run for Fame: Context Effects Affecting Self-Positivity in Judgments on Consumption Motives and Emotions

Many human judgments are comparative in nature (Mussweiler 2003). Consumers have been shown to judge themselves more positively (or less negatively) than others: a bias called self-positivity (Hoorens 1995; Pahl and Eiser 2005). These effects can represent true biases that people have about themselves that are self-enhancing or self-presentational tendencies in socially desirable reporting whereby they wish to appear better to others (Paulhus 2002). Building on the context effects literature in survey responding (Schuman and Presser 1996), we examine the potentially debiasing effect of question order and type of comparison other on self-presentational responding. Differences in self/other-judgments depend on contextual factors such as question-order (Lin, Lin, and Raghubir 2004) and type of other (Pahl, Eiser, and White 2009; Perloff and Fetzer 1986). We predict and show that self-presentational responding extends to the domain of consumption motives (why one undertakes an experience) and emotions (how one feels about an experience), and can be attenuated using contextual manipulations (question order, type of other) that affect the degree of perceived self/ other-similarity (Mussweiler 2003). We study the experience of marathon participation. In 2011, over half a million runners participated in 720 marathons in the US alone.1 In study 1 (N=957), we asked runners to indicate why they and average other runners run, and the emotions they feel and they believe other average runners feel when thinking of the upcoming race. We manipulated the order of self and other. Motives for running were categorized as self-esteem- or fitness-related. Emotions were categorized as positive or negative. All scales were multi-item. Means are in the table.